Where Trumpism And Pretend Christianity Meet-- A Danger To America

The Last Supper by Nancy Ohanian

This morning, the NY Times reported that "While Republicans have been bracing for months for a punishing election in November, they are increasingly alarmed that their losses may be even worse than feared because the midterm campaign appears destined to turn more on the behavior of the man in the White House than any other in decades... As much as gun control, immigration, the sweeping tax overhaul and other issues are mobilizing voters on the left and the right, the seamy sex allegations and Mr. Trump’s erratic style could end up alienating crucial blocs of suburban voters and politically moderate women who might be drawn to some Republican policies but find the president’s purported sex antics to be reprehensible."

Right after Stormy's 60 Minutes show-- with its 22 million eye-popping ratings-- Washington Post reporters Andrew Whitehead, Joseph Baker and Samuel Perry asked "Why are white Christians sticking so closely to Trump, despite these claims of sexual indiscretions? And why are religious individuals and groups that previously decried sexual impropriety among political leaders suddenly willing to give Trump a ‘mulligan’ on his infidelity?" They pointed to a Pew Research Poll from earlier this month about values. The poll shows that "Sizable shares of Americans say that those with views different from their own about how Donald Trump is handling his job as president also probably don’t share many of their other values and goals. Just over half (54%) of the public disapproves of the job Trump is doing, while fewer (39%) say they approve of his job performance... Among those who disapprove of Trump, 65% of self-identified Democrats say they don’t think those with a different view of Trump share their other values and goals... By 60%-34%, self-identified Republicans who approve of Trump say those with a different view of him probably do not share their other values and goals."

Among those who approve of the job Trump is doing as president, 51% say that those who feel differently about him probably do not share many of their other values and goals, while 44% say they probably do share their other values and goals.

Among those who disapprove of Trump-- the larger share of the overall public-- 56% say that those who approve of him probably do not share their other values and goals; fewer (39%) say that they probably do.

...Wide differences in views of Trump by educational attainment also persist. By 71% to 26%, those with a postgraduate degree disapprove more than approve of Trump’s performance. Similarly, nearly two-thirds of those with a bachelor’s degree (64%) disapprove.

By contrast, adults with a high school degree or less education are divided in their views: While 49% approve, about as many (46%) disapprove of Trump.

Among religious groups, white evangelical Protestants continue to be solidly supportive of the president’s job performance: 78% approve today, while just 18% disapprove. By comparison, white mainline Protestants are divided in their views on Trump, while black Protestants express overwhelming disapproval. A majority of Catholics disapprove of Trump’s job as president (57%), as do 68% of those who are religiously unaffiliated.

Back to Whitehead, Baker and Perry, but not to The Post, but to a sociology of religion podcast they did, Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election. "Why," they asked, "did Americans vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election? Social scientists have proposed a variety of explanations, including economic dissatisfaction, sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. The current study establishes that, independent of these influences, voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage. Data from a national probability sample of Americans surveyed soon after the 2016 election shows that greater adherence to Christian nationalist ideology was a robust predictor of voting for Trump, even after controlling for economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as measures of religion, sociodemographics, and political identity more generally. These findings indicate that Christian nationalist ideology-- although correlated with a variety of class-based, sexist, racist, and ethnocentric views-- is not synonymous with, reducible to, or strictly epiphenomenal of such views. Rather, Christian nationalism operates as a unique and independent ideology that can influence political actions by calling forth a defense of mythological narratives about America’s distinctively Christian heritage and future." And of course, none this has anything whatsoever to do with Jesus Christ or his teachings.

While American “civil religion” and “Christian nationalism” are closely connected in that both present a narrative and origin myth that expresses purpose and unites those who adhere to it, there are important differences between the two. Civil religion, on the one hand, often refers to America’s covenantal relationship with a divine Creator who promises blessings for the nation for fulfilling its responsibility to defend liberty and justice. While vaguely connected to Christianity, appeals to civil religion rarely refer to Jesus Christ or other explicitly Christian symbols. Christian nationalism, however, draws its roots from “Old Testament” parallels between America and Israel, who was commanded to maintain cultural and blood purity, often through war, conquest, and separatism. Unlike civil religion, historical and contemporary appeals to Christian nationalism are often quite explicitly evangelical, and consequently, imply the exclusion of other religious faiths or cultures. Also paralleling Old Testament Israel, Christian nationalism is often linked with racialist sentiments, equating cultural purity with racial or ethnic exclusion.

Unlike civil religion, contemporary manifestations of Christian nationalism can be unmoored from traditional moral import, emphasizing only its notions of exclusion and apocalyptic war and conquest. Trump represents a prime example of this trend in that he is not traditionally religious or recognized (even by his supporters) to be of high moral character, facts which ultimately did little to dissuade his many religious supporters. In this way, the Christian nation myth can function as a symbolic boundary uniting both personally religious and irreligious members of conservative groups. In this respect Christian nationalism, while more common among white conservative Protestants, also provides a resilient and malleable set of symbols that is not beholden to any particular institution, affiliation, or moral tradition. This allows its influence to reach beyond the Christian traditions of its origins.

During his candidacy, Trump at times explicitly played to Christian nationalist sentiments by repeating the refrain that the United States is abdicating its Christian heritage; however, Trump’s appeals to Christian nationalism were typically overlooked in media coverage of the campaign, which focused more on whether a relatively nonpious candidate could win the vote of the Religious Right. For example, in a speech to a crowd at Liberty University on January 18, 2016, Trump infamously quoted a Bible verse as being from “two Corinthians” rather than the customary “second Corinthians.” News coverage of the event focused on whether this gaffe displaying lack of knowledge about the Bible would hurt Trump with religious voters. Overlooked was the fact that immediately following his faux pas, Trump successfully made a direct appeal to Christian nationalism:

But we are going to protect Christianity. And if you look what’s going on throughout the world, you look at Syria where they’re, if you’re Christian, they’re chopping off heads. You look at the different places, and Christianity, it’s under siege. I’m a Protestant. I’m very proud of it. Presbyterian to be exact. But I’m very proud of it, very, very proud of it. And we’ve gotta protect, because bad things are happening, very bad things are happening, and we don’t-- I don’t know what it is-- we don’t band together, maybe. Other religions, frankly, they’re banding together and they’re using it. And here we have, if you look at this country, it’s gotta be 70 percent, 75 percent, some people say even more, the power we have, somehow we have to unify. We have to band together... Our country has to do that around Christianity (applause).

Similarly, at a campaign stop at Oral Roberts University, Trump announced that “There is an assault on Christianity... There is an assault on everything we stand for, and we’re going to stop the assault.” Later that year, on August 11 in a meeting with evangelical pastors in Florida, Trump claimed:

You know that Christianity and everything we’re talking about today has had a very, very tough time. Very tough time…. We’re going to bring [Christianity] back because it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. They treated you like it was a bad thing, but it’s a great thing.

Similarly, to those gathered at Great Faith Ministries International on September 3, 2016, Trump said, “Now, in these hard times for our country, let us turn again to our Christian heritage to lift up the soul of our nation.” Finally, there were a number of instances where Trump used the Johnson Amendment restricting political speech by nonprofit organizations as a foil, claiming that the Amendment singled out Christians and trampled on their right to freedom of speech.

While Trump directly referenced the Christian nation myth periodically, his various supporters and endorsers also made the connection between voting for Trump and the United States as a Christian nation. This was especially prevalent among various conservative Christian leaders. Many times the connection was made by arguing that Hillary Clinton would make the United States godless and potentially lead to an apocalyptic future. Christian author and media personality Eric Metaxas claimed that “God will not hold us guiltless” if Clinton were elected instead of Trump. James Dobson, founder of the evangelical ministry Focus on the Family, wrote that “If Christians stay home because he [Trump] isn’t a better candidate, Hillary will run the world for perhaps eight years. The very thought of that haunts my nights and days.” In another interview Dobson highlighted the importance of the Supreme Court vacancy and how “unelected, unaccountable, and imperialistic judges have a history of imposing horrendous decisions on the nation. One decision that still plagues us is Roe v. Wade.” He went on to share how religious liberty, religious freedom, and all religious institutions in America would be under siege if Clinton were elected.

Trump’s Christian nationalist rhetoric also expressed a particular eschatology of America’s future, emphasizing how America was once a great nation, but had rapidly disintegrated under the influences of Barack Obama, terrorism, and illegal immigration. Trump’s promise was to restore America to its past glory, a point he made most clearly with his ubiquitous slogan emblazoned upon red hats. The catchphrase has even been refashioned into a Christian hymn.2 Those supporting Trump, like Sarah Palin in her endorsement speech at Oral Roberts University, also implicitly aligned with a Christian nationalist eschatology: “In this great awakening, you all who realize that, man, our country is going to hell in a handbasket under this tragic fundamental transformation of America that Obama had promised us, know what we need now is a fundamental restoration of America.” The 2016 election was repeatedly labeled as conservative Christians’ “last chance” for citizens to protect America’s religious heritage and win back a chance at securing a Christian future. As Trump told conservative Christian television host Pat Robertson, “If we don’t win this election, you’ll never see another Republican and you’ll have a whole different church structure … a whole different Supreme Court structure.” Pining for America’s distinctively Christian past and insecure about her Christian future, all fomented by Trump’s apocalyptic campaign rhetoric, we hypothesize that Americans adhering to Christian nationalist ideology were more likely to vote for Trump.

It is critical to clarify that we are hypothesizing that the influence of Christian nationalism on the 2016 Presidential election is distinct from, even as it is closely related to, other cultural factors influencing voting for Trump. Christian nationalism has been linked to attitudes opposing economic regulations, welfare, and affirmative action, as well as gender equality and gay rights. And even more research has demonstrated that Christian nationalism is a strong predictor of antipathy toward racial boundary crossing, non-white immigrants, and non-Christians, especially Muslims. Consistent with its earlier racialist connotations, Christian nationalism can serve as an ethno-nationalist symbolic boundary portraying nonwhites and Muslims as threatening cultural outsiders. Indeed, in light of the strong role that Islamophobia was shown to play in shoring up support for Trump, and because Islam is often framed as the antithesis of both Christian and American identities, we would expect Trump support, Christian nationalism, and Islamophobia to be closely related.

Despite these close connections with economic views, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, however, Christian nationalism is not synonymous with or reducible to any or all of these. Rather, Christian nationalism operates as a set of beliefs and ideals that seek the national preservation of a supposedly unique Christian identity. Voting for Donald Trump was for many Americans a Christian nationalist response to perceived threats to that identity. Stated more formally, we hypothesize that Christian nationalism will predict voting for Donald Trump even after these other important and interrelated factors have been held constant, as well as under empirical contexts that allow for the potential interplay between Christian nationalism and various forms of ethnic resentment.

If these fake Christians overlook Trump's violation of Biblical proscriptions and injunctions, does anyone think they care at all about his Regime's blatant violations of ethical rules? Yesterday Public Citizen filed 30 ethics complaints against the regime. Lisa Gilbert an officer of Public Citizen explained that “The bottom line is that neither Trump nor his administration take conflicts of interest and ethics seriously. 'Drain the swamp’ was far more campaign rhetoric than a commitment to ethics, and the widespread lack of compliance and enforcement of Trump’s ethics executive order shows that ethics do not matter in the Trump administration.”

A key provision of the ethics order prohibits former lobbyists from being appointed without a waiver to governmental positions that oversee the same specific issue area they lobbied within the past two years. In a report titled The Company We Keep, Public Citizen identified dozens of appointments throughout the Trump administration that appear to violate this rule and has sent letters to the respective designated agency ethics officers requesting that they investigate and explain 30 such lobbyist appointments.

“These 30 apparent violations of Trump’s own ethics rules are only the tip of the iceberg,” said Craig Holman, co-author of the report and lobbyist for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. “We looked at only a quarter of all presidential appointees because records were not readily available at the time. I suspect the real number of potential violations is fourfold.”

About a week into his term, on a Saturday afternoon, Trump issued an ethics executive order designed to implement his campaign pledge to “drain the swamp.” The ethics order came as a surprise to many and borrowed some key provisions from President Barack Obama’s earlier ethics executive order. One such clause reads in part:

• “If I was a registered lobbyist within the 2 years before the date of my appointment, in addition to abiding by the limitations of paragraph 6, I will not for a period of 2 years after the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter on which I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment or participate in the specific issue area in which that matter falls.”

Public Citizen identified 36 lobbyists who have been appointed to positions that oversee the same specific issue areas they recently lobbied, with only six of those appointees having received publicly disclosed waivers from the ethics rule. Violations of Trump’s ethics rules by the remaining 30 former lobbyists would occur if they are in any way involved in influencing official actions on the matters that they had recently lobbied in the private sector and have not received a waiver.

Republican Determination To Get Rid Of Ethics Rules, Knows No Bounds

The very first thing the House Republicans did in the new session was to try to pass an amendment by Virginia alleged sexual predator Bob Goodlatte neutering the Office of Congressional Ethics. A public uproar forced them to postpone the vote. In the last few days, many Americans have been aghast to read that the scandal-ridden South Dakota state legislature, completely controlled by a depraved Republican Party, has prevented prosecution of its own members who have been raping interns and pages and is declaring a state of emergency to override a voter initiative on ethics! This is what happens in a tyrannical, perverted one-party state like South Dakota:

Stung by scandal and rebelling against a state government known for its resistance to public scrutiny, South Dakota voters narrowly approved a ballot measure in November to impose ethics oversight and campaign finance restrictions aimed at cleaning up the capitol in Pierre.

But the state’s overwhelmingly Republican legislature is racing this week to set aside that new law by using its emergency powers, prompting cries of protest from voters and critics, who are calling the hasty efforts an antidemocratic power grab.

In effect, they say, the state’s voters are being told that their votes don’t matter.

“We’re seeing an unprecedented effort here by Republicans at the federal level, in Congress, and in South Dakota to swim in the swamp instead of draining the swamp,” said Aaron Scherb, director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, which has encouraged its South Dakota members to contact lawmakers there.

Yesterday we outlined several cases where corrupt conservatives have done their best to evade accountability for their repulsive ethics-free misdeeds but have been forced by public opinion to resign from office. And this week Anne Weismann, former chief counsel of CREW and Patrice McDermott, executive director of OpenTheGovernment.org wrote an OpEd for the Washington Post on how members of Congress have surreptitiously succeeded in passing a new rule to shield their own criminal behavior. They wrote that "While all eyes were focused on failed House efforts to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics-- the only independent watchdog with jurisdiction over House members-- Republican congressmen led by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) quietly succeeded on another dubious ethical front: They adopted a rule designating records created, generated or received by a member’s congressional office 'exclusively the personal property' of that member and granting members 'control over such records.' Making congressional records the personal property of members seems tailor-made for the next lawmaker who, like former congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL), hopes to evade criminal responsibility by barring access to material allegedly showing how he misspent public funds." Schock was forced to resign from Congress and was convicted on 24 criminal counts in November and is still spending millions of dollars from wealthy GOP donors, fighting to stay out of prison.

Before the indictment, the Justice Department engaged in a protracted legal battle with Schock’s lawyers over who controlled thousands of pages of congressional office records from his tenure. Both Schock and the House general counsel argued that Schock personally owned the records and could not be compelled to produce them. In arguing for the right to access documents showing how Schock spent public funds, the government called Schock’s ownership claim “repugnant to the fundamental principle that no man is above the law.” In other court papers, Justice lawyers pointed out that Schock’s congressional office “does not exist and has never existed solely to represent and serve the interests and goals of Schock or any other Congressman.” Ultimately Schock backed down in the face of a second subpoena, and his indictment quickly followed.

Now, with the latest rule change, members will be shielded from Justice Department subpoenas for records like those at issue in Schock’s case, including Members’ Representational Allowances offering a window into whether members have used taxpayer funds to advance their own interests. With this change, the House essentially has claimed that members’ personal interests in protecting themselves from compelled disclosure trump the interests of constituents and the public. Such a change tilts the scale in favor of the member in any future investigation of the theft of taxpayer funds from Congress.

This rule change also represents yet another example of Congress exempting itself from the same record and accountability system that governs the executive branch. Congress is not subject to either the Freedom of Information Act or Federal Records Act. Although the Center for Legislative Archives houses records of historic value of the House and Senate, the records remain the legal property of the House and Senate.

Now, by making the records of congressional offices the personal property of members, the House has ensured that none of these records will be available for posterity. How ironic that Republican-controlled congressional committees have relied on statutes such as FOIA and the Federal Records Act to fault the practices of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, yet members have cloaked themselves in an impenetrable secrecy that allows them to escape public accountability.

This is yet another example where President Trump’s “drain the swamp” rhetoric is contradicted by the actions of his own party.

It's tempting to blame this on Republicans and it's true that the nature of conservatism in inexorably tied to corruption. They can't be separated. BUT, the Beltway governance systems are fully based on corrupttion and what's left of America's democracy-- and, yes, the DC Democrats are just as responsible as the Republicans-- is rotten to the core. The system is tailor made for the most ruthlessly corrupt among officials to rise to the top-- the Debbie Wasserman Schultzes, Chuck Schumers, Cory Bookers, Steny Hoyers, Joe Crowleys, as well as that Kevin McCarthys, Mitch McConnells, Paul Ryans, Denny Hasterts, Tom Delays and John Boehners. How fitting for someone likeDonald J. Trump to be presiding over all of this in what very well may be it's final, dying days! His regime's transition and first week are known for two things: lies (lots and lots and lots of lies-- so many lies that even the staid old NY Times now calls it lies-- "This is not a presentation of 'alternative facts,' whatever that may mean, as Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s mistress of misdirection, posited over the weekend; these are lies; good old-fashioned lies, baldfaced and flat-out lies"-- and operational denial of any and all acknowledgement that there are ethics considerations in governance. David Sirota: "A review of agreements between Trump’s top appointees and federal ethics regulators shows that none of the compacts mentions the 2009 executive order that requires incoming officials to sign a pledge to avoid participating in policies that 'directly and substantially relate to [their] former employer or former clients' for the first two years of government service. Obama-era ethics agreements included standard language obligating political appointees to follow the rule." Teapot Dome, here we come!

Former South Dakota Teenage Republican Of The Year-- Is Now The State Legislator Molesting Interns

Heading into the elections in November, the Democrats held 8 of the 35 seats in the South Dakota state Senate. On November 8, they held 6 seats (and none of the 6 had been contested by the GOP). And of the 70 members of the state House, only 10 are Democrats. Every statewide elected official is a Republican and the 3 members of South Dakota's congressional delegation are also Republicans. Trump beat Hillary 227,721 (61.5%) to 117,458 (31.7%). In 2012 Romney won the state, but Obama did far better than Clinton, having taken 144,988 votes (40%). Of the state's 66 counties, Obama won 10; Hillary won 5. The Republicans own South Dakota; the Democrats barely exist there.

Last week the legislature killed a proposal that would have banned the predatory sexual behavior between legislators and their young pages and interns. Conservatives, who believe in the law of the jungle feel they have the right to rape youngsters as a manifestation of their power. When state Senator Stace Nelson, a Republican from Fulton proposed a ban on the behavior, he was rebuffed. Conservatives-- particularly, though not exclusively, Republicans-- are generally extremely hostile to ethics regulations.

A legislative panel voted down a proposed rule change Wednesday that would have explicitly prevented them from engaging in sexual contact with legislative interns and pages.

...Nelson said state lawmakers have previously engaged in instances of sexual harassment and sexual contact involving interns and high school pages, with at least one facing charges in 2007 for allegedly groping a legislative page.

"The facts are, this body went through a very public and ugly trial about a decade ago. There's been events in history that indicate these rules should have been put in stone and they haven't," Nelson said. "This is a rule we brought forth to address this so that there is no gray area."

The proposal was defeated in committee 9-4. Ironically, South Dakota voters approved-- 180,580 (51.6%) to 169,220 (48.4%)-- a package of ethics reforms in November and Republican elected officials are working furiously-- and so far successfully-- to block the implementation.

Yesterday, Sioux Falls' Argus Leader, the biggest newspaper in the state, ran a report on right-wing Republican from Madison, Rep. Mathew Wollman, who has been molesting interns. Although he denied the allegations when first confronted with them, he has since admitted his culpability to another right-wing crackpot, House Majority Leader Lee Qualm.

I remember when Mark Foley was caught molesting young interns and let off the hook by a conspiracy between Republican and Democratic leaders in return for him resigning. (Later Foley told me he would take pages to states where the age of consent was lower so he could have sex with them without technically breaking statutory rape laws.) Wollmann is claiming that the interns he molested were "of age" and "consenting." He has admitted he fucked one intern in 2015 and another one last year. He seems bitter that "my reputation was lowered, or perceived to be seen as lowered." Conservatives can't help but play the victim; it's part of the nature of conservatism.

He said he believed both were older than 21, and that he didn't feel he took advantage of his position of power because neither worked for him and both were of consenting age, which is why he thought it was permissible.

He said he hasn't hired a lawyer to represent him and would consider testifying before the committee if called.

"I can’t express how much I’m embarrassed, I understand these actions are unacceptable and I’ll accept all punitive measures that are decided," Wollmann told reporters. "I’ve tarnished the system and our title, this body as well as my name."

The state's legislative rule book says lawmakers are to avoid all sexual harassment in the workplace, but nothing explicitly prohibits sexual contact with interns or legislative pages.

Wollmann's confession comes a week after a Joint Committee on Legislative Procedure voted down a proposed rule change that would have prohibited sexual contact between lawmakers and interns or pages. House members said during the meeting that they considered sexual contact with high school pages and college interns to be misconduct.

The South Dakota Legislature last dealt with a case of a lawmaker engaging in sexual contact with a page in 2007. At that time, the Select Committee on Discipline and Expulsion chose to censure Democratic state Senator Dan Sutton.

Qualm said he wouldn't comment on whether he viewed Wollmann's actions as a violation of House rules as he didn't want to skew the results of the investigating committee's probe.

“There are some implications in there, but that’s why we’re going by the rules, because we want the committee to make the determination,” Qualm said.

Yes... "some implications." Elizabeth Warren didn't have South Dakota or it's ethics-free Republican legislature in mind when she wrote her OpEd on the Republican approach to ethics for the Washington Post yesterday. She had Trumpanzee and his crooked cabinet in mind. Trumpanzee "is selecting nominees to run his government," she wrote. "It's no secret that I have deep reservations about the policy views of many of these nominees. I will vote against some of them."

But before we can debate and vote on whether these nominees' policy positions make them suitable to run important parts of our government, it is critical that each nominee follows basic ethics rules to ensure that they will act for the benefit of all the American people and not simply to boost their bank accounts.

The Republican-led Congress wants to brush off these ethics requirements as a mere inconvenience. Failing that, they are willing to intimidate the public servants charged with implementing the rules. If they succeed, the Republican-led Congress will erode public confidence in our democracy and set the new administration up for scandal and failure.

It is illegal for any Cabinet member to participate in a government matter that will "affect his own financial interest" or those of his or her family members, or any organization with whom he or she is affiliated. The reason this law exists is obvious: Without it, federal officials might be tempted to pursue their own interests rather than those of the American people, throwing into question the motives behind every move they make.

That is why Republicans and Democrats have embraced these restrictions. The procedures and precedents to enforce them have been followed by generations of American presidents and their Cabinets. Background checks ensure that nominees are free of criminal problems or debilitating foreign connections. Tax returns and financial disclosures reveal potentially damaging information that may undermine fitness to serve. Ethics agreements provide each Cabinet member a detailed, binding and personalized plan for disentangling from any personal and financial conflicts that could create even the appearance of self-dealing while in office.

But Republicans have ignored these safeguards. Betsy DeVos, the billionaire nominated to run the Department of Education despite having virtually no education experience, has not completed her financial disclosures or her ethics agreement. Despite Democrats' numerous attempts to postpone proceedings until these essential documents are provided, Republicans went ahead with DeVos's hearing Tuesday. Without the necessary information, we were unable to fully question the nominee about her many potential conflicts of interest. We were unable to say with confidence that DeVos will put the American people first. And after depriving the American public of even the most basic information on the nominee, Republicans further undercut a thoughtful examination by cutting the hearing short despite several senators pressing to ask additional questions.

When President Obama's nominees were presented to Congress, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) demanded that nominees meet these safeguards-- and they did, no matter who they were or what they had done in the past.

These requirements are even more important today, when Trump's nominees have complex financial histories, deep business ties and billions of dollars invested in the industries they will soon oversee. Complete compliance with the law might require weeks of hard work to identify and root out the many financial conflicts of a Cabinet whose members are collectively worth more than a third of all Americans combined. Difficult, yes-- but that is no excuse to ignore them.

The problem starts at the top. The president-elect has thrown out decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax returns or disentangle himself from his business connections. Now his Republican allies in Congress seem content to permit Cabinet nominees to do the same.

Republicans have threatened to jam through confirmation hearings despite incomplete FBI background checks, missing financial disclosures, refusals to produce tax returns and incomplete ethics agreements. When the head of the nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics said his office was under "pressure to cut corners and ignore conflicts of interest" to meet these rushed timelines and criticized the adequacy of the president-elect's plans for his own businesses, House Republicans finally decided to launch an inquiry into-- wait for it-- the Office of Government Ethics. Evidently Republicans don't like an "aggressive stance" on ethics issues.

Intimidating and bullying ethics officials into ignoring their legal responsibilities corrodes our democracy. It also leads to shoddy ethics agreements, which could leave Cabinet members with unresolved conflicts of interest that might affect their official actions.

Casting aside the nominees' ethical obligations puts everyone at risk-- even the nominees. Ethics agreements provide a clear line for executive branch employees between what is illegal and what is not. Conflicts can arise for even the most innocent of government officials. Respecting the process protects nominees from investigation and prosecution.

This problem is not theoretical. Lester Crawford, Food and Drug Administration administrator under President George W. Bush, resigned after only two months on the job and pleaded guilty to conflict of interest charges after failing to report ownership of stock in food and drug companies regulated by the agency. President Reagan's attorney general, Edwin Meese, was plagued by conflicts of interest, resigning in 1988 after years of investigations into one scandal after another that distracted the nation's top law enforcement officer. Over the years, many government officials have been caught up in such scandals. These rules exist to prevent such incidents.

Congress must take these ethical requirements seriously. No Cabinet member should receive a hearing before his or her background checks, financial disclosures and ethics agreements are finished and senators have had time to review them. Nominees should be forthcoming and transparent. If those hearings have occurred, nominees who have not completed their ethics reviews should return for another round of questions after that information is made available. Senators should be thorough in their assessment and questioning of nominees. And financial conflicts with official duties must be eliminated.

I recently introduced legislation that would protect the president and vice president from financial conflicts and constitutional violations by requiring them to fully disclose and divest themselves of all personal financial interests. No such law is necessary for Cabinet officials because the laws on the books are perfectly clear.

If Congress ignores these basic ethics requirements today, the American people and the nominees themselves likely will pay the price tomorrow.